Stretch of South Pierce Street to be excavated

A big stretch of South Pierce Street in downtown Amarillo must be excavated to move utilities for redevelopment projects, city staff said Wednesday.

Traffic on the major downtown thoroughfare will be reduced by two lanes during the work, which could start in February and take about two months, city of Amarillo Facilities Manager Jerry Danforth said Wednesday.

The city and utility companies are coordinating plans to relocate and increase capacity of water, sewer, natural gas, electric and communications lines that will serve the $113-million downtown development project.

The relocated lines will serve the convention center hotel, parking garage and baseball stadium to be built adjacent to the Amarillo Civic Center and Amarillo City Hall, and existing and new businesses in the area, City Manager Jarrett Atkinson said.

Danforth told the board of the Amarillo Local Government Corp. traffic on Pierce Street will have to be altered so that a 16-foot-wide trench can be dug to accommodate the underground lines.

The trench will extend from Southeast Eighth Avenue to Southeast Fifth Avenue, Danforth said. It will range in depth from 10 to 20 feet.

Burying the lines in segmented portions of a common trench should provide some cost-savings for future projects. It is not always easy to determine exactly where utilities installed underground decades ago are located, Atkinson said.

City utility lines in the area were installed in the late 1920s, so they were due to be replaced eventually due to their age, Atkinson said.

The city plans to install extra empty conduit lines in the trench for future expansion and increased capacity needs, Danforth said.

The conduit will allow lines to be pulled into place, from a starting point to an ending point opened in the street. That will help prevent the need to excavate the entire length of the trench again, Atkinson said.

“With the common-trench format, all parties are going to realize substantial savings,” he said.

The Pierce Street lines will be connected to other lines now being installed in the alley that runs from Southeast Eighth Avenue to Southeast 10th Avenue between Pierce and Buchanan Streets, Danforth said.

Cost estimates for the project are still being tabulated, he said.

The Amarillo City Commission has assigned the Amarillo Local Government Corp. board to monitor construction of the downtown redevelopment project on the public’s behalf.

The hotel, parking garage and stadium are being built by Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, a private Sugar Land firm that is the city’s master developer for the project.

Board members approved a 2012-13 budget that shows the entity is set to receive $81,000 from the city’s general fund.

The budget includes a projected $70,000 in legal fees for the year, Assistant City Manager Dean Frigo said.

Those costs would be associated with analysis by legal counsel of proposed contracts and other legal documents related to downtown redevelopment projects.

The rest of the funds are to cover insurance and bonds, travel for board members’ training, and other minor expenses, according to a budget spreadsheet provided to the board.